Silver City Astronomical Society
“Look at all those Stars! (If you Can)"
FREE

Tuesday, January 21, 2014
WNMU Student Memorial Building
3rd Floor Across from Coffee Shop
6:30 pm

The Silver City Astronomical Society will present its January program on Tuesday, January 21 at 6:30 pm in the classrooms across from the coffee shop on the 3rd floor of the WNMU Student Memorial Building on Campus. Dr. Alex Woronow of the Black Range Observatory will speak.

Whether you strive to take stunning pictures of distant galaxies or just to enjoy gazing at the billions of stars of the Milky Way, the better the sky—the better the view. Three major factors control the “better” of that viewing experience: dark skies, clear skies, and steady skies.

The obvious benefit of a dark sky when lying back in a lounge chair on a summer’s evening and counting the stars cannot be overrated. But, if you employ even a modest telescope to photograph a faint, fuzzy nebula, does light pollution degrade your result as severely as it does the naked-eye observer’s experience? And how about a little haze in the sky? It may be virtually undetectable, but how detrimental is it to the deep-sky imagers and to the visual observers? And we all know that stars “twinkle," but that’s not favorable to the deep-sky imagers either, and it can be the yin-and-the-yang of the naked-eye observers.

So, what can we do to recognize, categorize, quantify, and maybe even ameliorate these potential degradations to star gazing? Attend and learn. And, if time and interest permit, we may briefly look at a new computer program designed to identify a deficit in sky clarity, even when it’s not visually apparent.

As always, SCAS programs are free to the public of all ages; we welcome families with children and WNMU students. For more information, contact Kathy at silvercityofstars@gmail.com.